Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Federal investigators increasingly suspect that a collision with a bird led to the crash last month of a widely used Sikorsky helicopter model that killed eight people in the Gulf of Mexico, according to industry officials and safety experts.

The Jan. 4 crash of the Sikorsky S-76C chopper, manufactured by a unit of United Technologies Corp., initially had stumped crash investigators, who had previously ruled out engine, transmission, electrical or hydraulic failures. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is heading the probe, also said the chopper didn't run out of fuel, hit some other aircraft or suffer a problem with its rotors. Now, investigators think a bird strike destroyed the windshield, which somehow resulted in nearly turning off the engines.

Is this going to be the new thing now? We had one famous plane crash as a result of a bird blitzkrieg and now every time a bird hits a kite we're going to hear about it? Birds hit 7,439 aircraft a year, mostly resulting in aborted takeoffs or emergency landings. I know, since 1988 birds have murdered 219 people in 200 air crashes, but it's not a menace to the airways quite yet. Is this the media's new Summer of the Shark? The late Winter of the Bird!

Relax and breathe, the birds aren't organizing. We went over this, they're controlled by al Qaeda. We can stop this with a simple billion dollar, multi-year conflict somewhere in the Middle East. Regain the skies!